Lafargue Clinic records

1946-1981 [bulk 1946-1958]

Lafargue Clinic was founded in 1946 by the well-known psychiatrist Fredric Wertham (director of the mental hygiene clinic at Queens General Hospital), along with novelist Richard Wright and Earl Brown, a staff writer for Life. Reverend Shelton Hale Bishop, rector of St. Philip's Episcopal Church, offered free use of the basement space in the parish house, where the clinic remained until its closing in 1959. The clinic was named after the nineteenth century Cuban physician, philosopher and social reformer, Paul Lafargue.

As the first mental hygiene clinic in Harlem, Lafargue was established to provide low cost treatments (25 cents per visit for those who could afford it) to a primarily Black population. At the time, Black people in need of psychiatric care could not obtain treatment in most New York City hospitals and clinics due to racial discrimination. As originally conceived, the clinic was to concentrate on juvenile cases, as Dr. Wertham hoped to treat children to reduce the percentage of juvenile delinquency cases in Manhattan. Although it was assumed that the vast majority of the patients would be Black, the founders were determined that no color line would be drawn regarding either their patients or staff. In practice, Lafargue treated Black and white, adults and children, and aided patients from other parts of New York as well as Harlem.

The emphasis of the Lafargue Clinic was not on testing, but on practical, intensive, and if necessary, prolonged psychotherapy. The clinic determined that in addition to mental disturbances induced by the special problems of a segregated minority, there were many diagnoses of neuroses and psychoses common in other communities. The staff was adamant that the patients be treated at Lafargue as they would by psychiatrists elsewhere. No referrals for appointments were necessary and although some patients were sent by the Veterans Administration and the State Department of Social Welfare, treatments at the clinic were voluntary.

Lafargue Clinic received no public funding though it accepted contributions. By 1947, its all volunteer staff consisted of fourteen psychiatrists, twelve social workers, and other specialists and clerical workers. Among the professional staff were Dr. Hilde Mosse (Physician-in-Charge), Katherine Williams Battle, Peter Beron, Charles Collins (Black psychotherapist), Ernst Jolowicz, Andre Tweed (Black psychiatrist), and Luise Zucker. Dr. Wertham saw all new patients. The clinic was open only two evenings a week as the staff had private practices or worked for other institutions. In the early 1950s, Lafargue Clinic participated in one of the many legal cases leading up to the landmark Brown vs Board of Education decision to abolish school segregation. Based upon a 1951 study of Black and white children in Delaware undertaken by the Clinic, Dr. Wertham and the staff determined that school segregation caused mental health problems. Lawyers for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, representing a group of children and their parents who were contesting segregation in Wilmington, used the results of the study in that court case. The judge decided in favor of the plaintiffs, and African American children were admitted to two schools in Delaware which were not previously integrated. Several psychiatrists on staff published clinical studies based upon their experiences, among them Hilde Mosse and Fredric Wertham.